Ron Hinds wrote:
"Dave Smirkenberg" wrote in message
...

A hundred bucks would go a long way toward some high quality feedline.
Save the money and build an antenna.

Dave

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your comments. On the subject of feed line - which of these would
be better:

RG-8X
RG-8/U
RG-213/U

Thanks again for the reply.

- Ron




RG-213 and RG-8 (both of which standards are actually obsolete, so
you're buying RG-213 "type" cables) are basically the same.. roughly
0.4" in diameter, solid polyethylene dielectric, AWG13 inner conductor.

RG-8X is a smaller diameter foam dielectric cable which will have higher
loss (because the conductors are physically smaller, so IR losses are
higher).

There are tons and tons of other cables that may be better or worse for
your application.

Are you looking for something for VHF and up? In that case, the foam
dielectrics tend to be lower loss than the solid dielectric. foam
dielectric 75 ohm coax (as used in cable TV systems) is pretty good from
a loss standpoint at VHF and UHF, although you need to check the exact
type (there are some pretty bad 75 ohm coaxes out there, too).

Do you care about exposure to the elements?
Does it need to be flexible?

Are you transmitting through it (e.g. is power handling important?)